Archiving Records

[NWGal]

I am wondering which is the better way to archive records, the first way I know of and am currently doing is to leave them in the table which has a field "archived" set to yes/no. From there I have all the related queries simply filter by yes or no. I have also set a button on my actions form to change this value to yes when I need to archive a contact so that in all the underlying structure that person goes "hidden". This works however at times I need to un-archive contacts. Soo, would it be better to set up table for archived contacts, using a make table query and deleting the records from the original table so that I have a ready table of archived contacts to pull from when I need to un-archive? If I did this, I assume I would then change my queries where needed because the table they pull from would only contain non-archived contacts. Is this right? Which in your opinion is the better way?

[HansV]

Unless the number of records is so large that the database becomes slow, I prefer your current setup (with a yes/no field "archived"). It's very easy to handle.

There could be a problem if a person objects to remaining in the database, but that could be solved by deleting or garbling the fields with personal information.

[NWGal]

Unless the number of records is so large that the database becomes slow, I prefer your current setup (with a yes/no field "archived"). It's very easy to handle.

There could be a problem if a person objects to remaining in the database, but that could be solved by deleting or garbling the fields with personal information.

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback, I'd rather not have to re-tool it if I can avoid that. I wonder if simply having another combobox/button setup where the cb gets only the archived records and the button acts on those would be the simplest solution.

[HansV]

I generally create a separate form to manage archived records. It is based on the same table, but displays either only "archived" records, or if you prefer, all records.
Unarchiving is simply a matter of clearing a check box.
In some databases, access to this management form is restricted by a password (not so much as a strict security measure but to prevent users from opening it by accident).